Entertainment censorship is out of control

At the end of last year I wrote a column based on the rumor that 50 Cent was going to be performing at Quinnipiac over May Weekend. I took the time to show my disapproval for the music he performs, the lifestyle he lives, and the negative influence that he has on today’s younger generations.

But on the day that 50 Cent’s first movie “Get Rich Or Die

Tryin'”opens, I want to defend the rapper for the unnecessary attacks that he has recently been receiving based on billboards for his movie being appearing close by to schools.

There are two major grassroots parent groups that are attempting to take down the movie posters because they feel that 50 Cent is inappropriate for school kids and promotes violence and drugs. I should mention that these billboards are in South Central Los Angeles and Brooklyn, two places that do not need 50 Cent billboards to promote violence and drugs.

There are two big problems that can evolve from this. The first being that the same people who have already made our television unwatchable due to restrictions and “inappropriate” material are now trying to stop harmless billboards from being put up around places where there are schools.

This censorship of business and marketing by over-protective parents is a problem that endangers the whole capitalistic society that we live in. What these parents are not realizing is that 50 Cent and people of that ilk are only famous because of the young middle school and high school kids who watch MTV buy their records mostly under these parents noses.

The parents obviously have no idea how easily available it is to get the music already, and to download the movie, that banning the advertisement will be a fruitless endeavor that will only make them look like overprotective parents.

But to a movie buff like me, what is most concerning is that this is the second movie this year that is being censored by parents who believe that some movies are inappropriate for the family.

This summer’s funniest and best movie, “The Aristocrats,” is a documentary about the oldest dirty joke featuring 100 comedians telling their own rendition of the joke. It is the only movie ever to be rated NC-17 just for language and not for any pornographic material. In response to the early reviews and buzz, AMC movie theaters, with the heat pouring in from family groups, banned the movie in all their theaters.

Is it too much for these parents and groups to just not take their kids to see the movie if they are worried about the material in it? Why have the rest of the people who are not uptight about content in their entertainment not have the opportunity to see a movie they might be interested in seeing?

We, as a country, have been seeing more and more censorship in our entertainment, more so since the Janet Jackson escapade at the Super Bowl two years ago. It is poisoning the country and we need to put an end to these parents who want to baby and pamper their kids to the point where they have the personality of Terri Schiavo.

I hope “Get Rich Or Die Tryin'” is a box-office hit. Anyone who read my column last year or knows me personally knows that I do not care for 50 Cent, his music, or his lifestyle that the movie portrays. But I hope that the movie is a hit and these grassroots campaign to not bring attention to the movie fail miserably.

I for one will see the movie for that very reason. I have no relation with the ghetto and the drug hustling that 50 Cent knows and is trying to show us in the movie, but I will try and enjoy it for entertainment that it was intended to be.

And in January when “The Aristocrats” comes out on DVD, I urge everyone to see it and just scratch your head and ask why the movie was banned because of a few rotten apples.